Next NASA Mars Rover Reaches Key Manufacturing Milestone

A technician works on the descent stage for NASA's Mars 2020 mission inside JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility. Mars 2020 is slated to carry NASA's next Mars rover to the Red Planet in July of 2020. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech › Full image and caption

NASA's
Mars 2020 mission has begun the assembly, test and launch operations (ATLO)
phase of its development, on track for a July 2020 launch to Mars.

The
first planned ATLO activities will involve electrical integration of flight
hardware into the mission's descent stage. The Mars 2020 rover, as well as its
cruise stage, aeroshell and descent stage -- a rocket-powered "sky
crane" that will lower the rover to the planet's surface -- will undergo
final assembly at the Spacecraft Assembly Facility High Bay 1 at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"No
better place in the world to assemble NASA's next Mars rover than JPL's High
Bay 1," said Mars 2020 Project Manager John McNamee at JPL. "On the floor
you'll see the components of our spacecraft taking shape -- put together by
people who are the best in the world at what they do. And on the wall behind
them you will see all the logos of the historic missions of exploration that
have also been assembled in High Bay 1 in the past."

Those missions include the Ranger missions to the moon (the
first time America reached out and touched the moon), the Mariner mission to
Venus (the first spacecraft to
successfully encounter another planet) and Mars rovers.

Over
the next year-and-a-half, engineers and technicians will add subsystems such as
avionics, power, telecommunications, mechanisms, thermal systems and navigation
systems onto the spacecraft. The propulsion systems were installed earlier this
year on the cruise and descent stage main structures.

"Parts
of this mission are coming from the other side of the world, and some are
coming from just 'down the street' in Pasadena, and some are coming from
literally down the street - a couple of buildings away," said David Gruel, ATLO
Manager for Mars 2020 at JPL. "Right now we are working the descent stage, and
by fall we expect to be working on the rover itself."

Mars 2020 is
targeted for launch in July 2020 aboard an Atlas V 541 rocket from Space Launch
Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The rover will
conduct geological assessments of its landing site on Mars, determine the
habitability of the environment, search for signs of ancient Martian life, and
assess natural resources and hazards for future human explorers. Additionally,
scientists will use the instruments aboard the rover to identify and collect
samples of rock and soil, encase them in sealed tubes, and leave them on the
surface of Mars for potential return to Earth by a future mission to the Red
Planet.

The mission will build on the achievements of the Curiosity
rover and other Mars Exploration Program missions, and offer opportunities to
deploy new capabilities developed through investments by NASA's Space
Technology Program and Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, as
well as contributions from international partners.

The Mars 2020 Project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars 2020 spacecraft development for the
Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA's
Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will manage and
oversee the Atlas V launch service for Mars 2020.